What it does

Makes your games and simulations update smoothly at a constant time step.

It separates update ticks and rendering frames. This way when writing games and simulations the state of the game updates at a constant time step while the rendering happens as fast as the browsers requestAnimationFrame updates.

How to use it

var onUpdate = function(){
	//update the state (i.e. update positions, do physics etc...)
};
var onRender = function(){
	//render to the canvas or whatever your render target is
};
var t = timestepper(onUpdate, onRender);

t.start();//start the loop
...
t.stop();//pause the loop
...
t.start();//start the loop again

By default it calls update 60 times a second, however you can customize this rate. For example: if you want it to update 30 times a second do this

var t = timestepper(onUpdate, onRender, 1/30);

By default the frame rate is the native requestAnimationFrame, however you can customize this interval.

var t = timestepper(onUpdate, onRender, 1/30, 1000/30);

There are 3 ways to include this library

With browserify

var timestepper = require('simple-timestepper');
...

With a script tag

Download this script then include it in your html

<script src="simple-timestepper.min.js"></script>

Then use it

var timestepper = SIMPLE_TIMESTEPPER;
...

With RequireJS

require(['simple-timestepper'], function(timestepper) {
	...
});

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014 Small Helm LLC

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.